


Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - Stuck in the tunnel

by Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis (Samstown4077)



Series: Colepaldi Collection [32]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humour, Tumblr Prompt, bit angsty, stuck in the tunnel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3192716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a tumblr prompt and the actual happening that Peter and Jenna arrived too late for a read through after they have been stuck in a tunnel. What happened in the car while they waited that traffic would move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - Stuck in the tunnel

**Author's Note:**

> Don't read if you don't like RPF. My native is not English, thanks for the read anyway!

Peter had picked up Jenna by her apartment at seven in the morning to drive to the studio for the read through. Her apartment is on the way so they had settled onto that. He picking her up, little chat and fifteen minutes later they usually were at the studio and still had time for a coffee and a short breakfast.

Now it was somewhere between seven and eight and the car hadn’t moved since at least five minutes. There is one tunnel - a couple 100 meters long - they have to drive through, and it usually never is a thing to talk about, but today it came different. Somewhere in front of them, there seems to be an accident and everything had come to an hold. Cars stand still, are honking and some people try to get a better view by getting out of the car. There is a police man who tells them to go back and wait. Nothing serious just a little crash, no one harmed but the cars have to be towed away.

Peter and Jenna sit in silence for a bit, she still is a bit tired and simply stares out of the window while he starts to shift around in his seat. First she thinks he has an itch or something, or is simply restless like he mostly is, but this time it is different, she could see it in the way his hands trail around the wheel again and again and his left foot pats in the footwell.

“You are alright?” she finally asks, eying him suspicious.

“Why do you ask?” he bites his thumb and there she knows something is wrong. That and avoiding answers is his thing, when there is something up.

“You… seem nervous,” she turns a little in her seat to have a better look at him.

He huffs, not knowing what to say, so she would stop asking. There is too much time at hand - the cars will not move forward any time soon, “We are stuck in a tunnel.”

“Happens everyday.”

“Does it? Haven’t noticed,” he is edgy, his leg is still moving.

“Are you afraid-,”

“-I am not afraid!” he quickly says a bit too loud, because that is what some men do, when women point something like that out. “Sorry. I am not afraid, I just… I don’t like tunnels.”

She gives herself a few seconds to watch him, to find out what bugs him and if it is a serious kind of bug, “I am sure it will be done in a couple of minutes.”

He takes a deep breath, stretching his neck to one side then to the other that it cracks in his neck, “Doesn’t look like it.”

“I know,” she answers, getting a look of him as if he wants to ask her why she has lied to him. “I wanted to calm you down. We are safe you know. Nothing will happen. The tunnel doesn’t look like it will collapse anytime soon. And there will be no fire, at least I don’t think there will be one.”

“Oh, I am glad you kept that to yourself!” he clasps his hands together and settles them in his lap kneading them. And after a pause he adds, “I don’t like tunnels.”

“In general or?”

“What do you mean? Is there anyone who likes tunnels in general?”

“Probably not,” she sways with her head from left to the right, thinking about it. “So you don’t like tunnels.”

He knows she won’t stop, and they have time at hand, so he gives in, “It’s dark, and sticky and cold and… narrow. I don’t like narrow places. It’s …,”

“It’s?”

“Threatening.”

“Are you about to panic or something? Then maybe we should try to make a U-turn. Shall I drive?” she now gets nervous. She doesn’t know how this will affect him, she only knows some people can really freak out over it. Like she can freak out over spiders or cockroaches.

“It’s fine, I am not running headless around okay, I just feel not fine with it,” he explains. “Don’t worry.”

“Let’s hear some music, I am sure it will distract us a bit,” she presses the button but the only thing that comes out is static noise. “Do you have any CDs? How about some “ _Dreamboys_ ”?”

That really makes him huff and turn toward her, “Very funny!”

“I mean it!” After she had found out that he was once the lead singer of a punk band called _“The Dreamboys”_ she had spent considerable time on youtube. “Do you? Have a CD?”

He smirks, not ashamed of his past, but a bit flustered in her presence about it, “No, I don’t think there are any CDs. I have an LP at home.”

“Any other CDs? Where are they? In the glove box?”

“No! Wait!” he reaches out to her arm, stopping her.

“What is it? Do you have a gun in your glove box or something?”

“This is London, not New York,” he frowns amused at her. “I am no gangster boss.”

“So what will I find in there?” her hand lingers by the opening mechanism.

“Nothing,” he says it most innocent but they both know it doesn’t sound convincing.

“Then there is something indecent in it?” she gives him a smuck expression, enjoying the little banter that enfolds.

“Something indecent? Do you think I drive my sex toys in my glove compartment around?” he asks in played indignation.

“You use sex toys?” her hand retreats from the compartment for a moment.

He stares straight outside the window, his lips curling into a smile while slowly opening his mouth, “No.”

Her eyes are little slots now, “You make this up. Wind me up in this conversation so I will not open it. All sex toys aside,” and with that she opens it and he only snaps for a little air.

“Oh, what a disappointment,” her shoulders loose tension and she longs with her hand into the little space. There are just papers and some maps in it. And…”Oh look at this,” her hand digs deeper and then she finds the little “sex toy”. A sonic screwdriver.

“Why do you have a sonic in your glove box?” she holds it up, pressing the button so it unsnaps.

Now he really is a bit offended, “I am the Doctor.”

“Driving around and sonicing things while you're on the highway?”

“Yeah,” he takes it away from her. “It’s good for switching red lights into green,” he buzzes into the deep of the tunnel.

“Is it?” she takes it again from him and sonics him from tip to toe, doing as if she would read the results. “Quite a mess of chemicals you are.”

Cocking an eyebrow at her, he smiles pleased, “Nice phrasing. I might steal this as an ad lib one day.”

She buzzes him once more, and then lays the sonic back into the glove box. “So no music then.”

“How about conversation? Have you young people forgotten how to talk?”

“Have you old people forgotten about manners?”

He smiles down into his lap, his fingers tapping on the wheel in a slow rhythm. “Did you went home over the weekend?” he suddenly asks, he not wants to talk about work.

“No,” she answers a slight sadness in her voice. “After all the night shootings I was too tired. I came home and just fell into my bed and rose again one and a half hours ago.”

He snickers over it, “Yeah, same. You should have called,” he says it because it’s a thought that had crossed his mind earlier, even if he has no answer for what they could do when they would meet up.

She is unsure if she shall tell him, that she had played this idea through for a few minutes, already her phone in hand, but then she had decided against it, because she was sure he had flown home to London. “Next time you stay, I might do this.”

They fall into a silence for a few moments, each one of them thinking what they could do together on the weekends. Thinking about dinner, a movie, a walk in the park, trying to be normal. Cardiff was more bearable as London. In London everybody knows them. They think of just hanging out together, because that is what friends do sometimes.

“Can I ask you something?” he turns his head without looking at her.

“Sure,” there is a certain expression she catches and can’t place it.

“Do you miss Matt (Smith)?” he only locks eyes with her, when the question is out and then he only keeps eye contact for a few seconds before he starts to believe that his question seems ridiculous.

It’s not a question she had expected, “Sometimes. He is a good mate, we had fun working together,” for a moment she thinks he asks because of her, so she adds, “Also I knew he would leave when I started the job.”

The way his left hand presses the fingers of his right together tells her, that the question is not about her, but about him. “Why do you ask?”

“So he is your Doctor, right?”

She frowns, unsure how to take the question.

“You said you hadn’t seen Doctor Who before, so he is your Doctor right. Thats what people say. When you start watching the show, the first Doctor you see is _your_ Doctor.”

“I know how it goes, Peter,” she smirks and slowly understands what is wrong. “When you say so, then he is my Doctor.”

He dwells on the next question, “Do you miss your Doctor?”

They are shooting for two month now, and they haven’t seen yet anything what will be aired in August. He doesn’t know how people will react to him. There are only these 2 minutes of the regeneration scene and she knows he is nervous. Confident about his acting but nervous. Matt was popular and surly he can take it if people don’t like him, though all the nagging about his age, it had left some marks.

“No,” she says and Jenna can see, that Peter had expected a _‘yes’_ and now has to rearrange his reaction.

“No?”

“I have my Doctor,” she feels a blush. “He picks me up for read throughs, gets stuck with me in tunnels and occasionally we safe planets and travel time and space.”

That makes him chuckle heartily, giving her a bright smile, not knowing how to phrase a thank you.

“You are a great Doctor, Peter. I see you on set every day and you are brilliant, and believe me, you top them all in the end.”

“You are sure, you don’t just say it because-”

“-I say it because it is true.”

“They expect so much,” he only says.

She turns again a bit, reaching for his hand, “And you will deliver. They will love you as the Doctor. Believe me. Actually I think they have to cancel the show for a few years, when you leave one day, because there is no one who will reach up to you.”

He presses her hand, “Flattering words.”

“Remember my words,” her thumb trails over the back of his hand and they both watch it happen. She senses it is maybe not the right thing to do, and takes her hand away, not without pressing it one last time.

After long minutes, “Thank you.”

She shrugs with one shoulder smiling into the footwell watching her feet moving a little stone around. Then she suddenly gets hit by a thought and her forehead falls into deep frowns. “Wait a minute, you said, you don’t like narrow rooms.”

“Yes?”

“How the hell do you bare the Tardis then?” she still frowns while looking at him. She never had noticed anything when they were in the Tardis, in the dim light, waiting.

He swallows, “I hate it actually,” he starts the engine, because the cars are moving again. “But I have a dear companion at my side, and that makes it okay.”

The look he gives her is a tick too long and she will ask herself about this moment and its meaning later that day. When she regains again from the blushing of her cheeks she is about to say something, but it slips her when the car finally leaves the tunnel again and the sunlight is dazzling them both.

They keep silent till they reach the BBC, she looks outside the window, smiling, having his words in her ears and the look of his before her eyes. She asks herself if something has shifted in the tunnel through their conversation. If it has, she can’t say what, she only knows it was a good day to get stuck in a tunnel.

When they enter the room everybody is waiting and they both smile apologetical. Peter gives Jenna a short look, and there is something in his eyes that tells her he has noticed too, this little short precious moment they have shared.

 _“Sorry to keep you waiting, but we got stuck in a tunnel,”_ he says it in a light mischievous tone and winks.

Everybody is snickering.

They never tell anyone, but they could imagine to get stuck like this every day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed (or not), please leave a comment or Kudos!?
> 
> I publish regularly for Colepaldi RPF.


End file.
